Products made from plastic are commonly manufactured by a variety of molding processes, including blow molding, injection molding, thermoforming, and rotational molding or rotomolding. Conventional rotomolding processes typically use a rotomolding machine 12 (FIG. 1) having a hollow cavity mold 14 mounted upon a rotomolder arm 20 and disposed within an oven 22. The hollow cavity mold 14 may have a variety of designs depending upon the shape of the product to be produced. A typical hollow cavity mold 14 has a two-piece construction and consists of a lower cavity 16 having an inside surface 26 and an upper cavity 18. The rotomolding machine 12 is typically designed such that the rotomolder arm 20 can bi-axially rotate the hollow cavity mold 14 about its major or minor axis or simply rotate the hollow cavity mold 14 about a single axis. In conventional rotomolding processes, a charge or shot weight of material is placed into the lower cavity 16 of the hollow cavity mold 14 and the hollow cavity mold 14 is heated under bi-axial rotation until the material within the hollow cavity mold 14 is melted into successive layers to form a single wall structure. The hollow cavity mold 14 is then cooled and opened and the resulting product is removed. The material used for the charge or shot weight of the rotomolding process is typically derived from virgin polyethylene in the form of pellets having no color (hereinafter the "Virgin Pellets"). If a color is desired, the Virgin Pellets may be processed by hot melting color compounds into the virgin material to produce color pellets (hereinafter the "Color Pellets"). The Virgin and/or Color Pellets are produced in a variety of sizes from "standard" to "micro." Typically, the Virgin and/or Color Pellets are typically ground into a powder of 35 mesh particle size for use by the rotomolder (hereinafter the "Virgin Powder" and "Compound Powder", respectively). In the case of a Virgin Powder, a rotomolder can dry blend pigment color powder into the Virgin Powder to form a dry color powder (hereinafter the "Dry Color Powder").
The use of rotomolding processes to form a product having multiple and well defined color patterns has not been successful.